A gun store in eastern North Carolina uses its electronic billboard to run a mix of hard-right political messages and gun-sale pitches. One message reads: “Work harder. Millions on welfare depend on you.”

When it comes to health care, the billboard could read: “Work harder. Millions without insurance depend on you.”

But therein lies the irony: Republicans don’t want to pay for welfare. But they apparently do want to pay for people who don’t have health insurance.

We all pay higher taxes and higher insurance rates to subsidize people without health insurance. Presumably, that’s OK with conservatives. No need for personal responsibility here.

Originally, conservatives came up with the insurance mandate. That was back in the 1990s, when they were fighting HillaryCare.

Today, they’re fighting anything and everything that President Obama is for. And, ironically, Obama was against the mandate when Hillary proposed it in 2008.

So, now, the fate of Obama’s administration may hinge on what the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a Republican idea that he once opposed.